Ye Old Granola Barres

Wow, my 2nd post. How weird is that. I was up to like, 300 or something, oh well. Here we go again! Unfortunately I don't maintain any kind of blogroll (for lack of time and technological know-how) so I have no idea how to find those folks I love to read. So if you drop in please leave a comment, even if its only a tiny thing, so I can find you again, boo-hoo!!!

Yesterday we went to a tiny open-air market nearby, and there were about 10 tables lining the street. Not much but I had not gone yet this summer, and it was our 17th anniversary so... that's where I wanted to go! We got a bakers-dozen big sack of corn cobs, and a sack of new potatoes, and one very nice large onion. I don't need any crocheted slippers, hand carved furniture, or passport holders at this time. I'll come back if I do. I'm a simple girl.

One of my pet peeves is when you approach a table at any kind of craft fair, garage sale, market whatever, and the people start harping about the item you are looking at in non-stop sales-pitch make-me-want-to-pull-my-hair-out vivid description. Leave us alone, I think, we're shopping! This is what I'm hearing: "Well you look for your passport and you can never find it and it's at the bottom of your purse and if you carry it in this little holder then you can always find it and blah blah blah....." OK, OK! Please stop! I truly understood your sign stating "passport holder" and I can see that you've put a lot of glue-gun time into these... but jeez, I can read! :)

Anyway, I'm probably done venting. We shall see.

So today the plans are to make home-baked school snacks, seeing as how I'll be home for the next month and trying to find ways to cut costs and provide more wholesome munchies for school. Did you know some granola bars contain more ingredients than an average bottle of shampoo?

So I looked up several recipes and I'm going to try my hand at these today. Most homemade granola bars are easy to bake and freeze for a long time if well sealed, and you can use home-made granola and throw in your own mix-ins like chocolate chips, or sunflower seeds, or honey, or peanuts, m&m's, raisins, dates, almonds, whatever. If you search for "granola bar recipes, you'll find a lot that have been tested and have photos or tutorials, and there is such a variety that there's bound to be something for every taste and for houses with allergy restrictions. Here are a few I liked:

~The Supper Sisters' recipe, which mixes in crispy rice with the granola and mix-ins...
~The Half-Assed Kitchen with a great granola recipe for cereal or to make into bars, why not...
~Good natural granola recipe from Kiss My Spatula (I like how they use lot of organics, and you may only need to bake for 20 min instead of 30, fyi)
~This granola bar recipe from Pennies On A Platter (via Barefoot Contessa from the credit given on her page)... I like this one because you don't need to make the granola beforehand and can substitute condensed milk for honey if allergies can't work with honey.... the only thing that raised an eyebrow was the wheat germ in here. I don't usually have wheat germ in the house however, so here are things that Mr. Internet told me you can substitute for the wheat germ: ground flax, ground t'eff (or flour), ground Kasha (buckwheat), brown rice cereal, or ground chia seeds. Or just leave it out.

So off I go to try these out.... think I'll try each bar recipe and see which ones we like more. I've got a bag of trail mix ready to be thrown in too. :) Hope you all have a nice Labor Day... tomorrow we go to the beach for our last-blast picnic! Take care!

T